Like Paper In Fire
by Calico
Summary: A crossover fic. Set a few years after “Silence of the Lambs”, Agent Starling is asked by an old friend in the FBI for some help. It may or may not lead to Dr. Lecter.


Title: "Like Paper In Fire"  
  
Author: Calico calico321@yahoo.com  
  
Rating: PG-13  
  
Summary: A crossover fic. Set a few years after "Silence of the Lambs", Agent Starling is asked by an old friend in the FBI for some help. It may or may not lead to Dr. Lecter.  
  
  
  
  
  
"Agent Starling."  
  
Clarice Starling, typing away at her latest report on the RICO case she'd been working on for the past six months, who had had less than three hours sleep in the last 36, lifted her fingers from the keyboard at the voice. Her eyes, tired and bloodshot around the vivid blue irises, turned to the man standing beside her desk.  
  
"Well as I live and breathe," she drawled in her most accented vernacular. "If it isn't Spooky Mulder. What brings you up from the depths of Hell?" Unlike her fatigued body, her voice was strong, dripping with sarcasm.  
  
"You. And they don't call me Spooky anymore," he said with a shade of embarrassment in his intense eyes above his almost clownish smile.  
  
"Well, maybe they should," she replied, leaning back in her chair, hands folded behind her head.  
  
"You're one to talk, considering your past exploits."  
  
"I talked with a man, I didn't commune with the devil."  
  
"Some might argue against that."  
  
Rolling her eyes, she said, "What do you want Mulder?"  
  
"You know I requested you to be transferred to the X-Files?"  
  
"Of course! I flat out refused."  
  
"Why?"  
  
"It's career suicide." Starling had found out in the years since graduating the FBI Academy that the glass ceiling was more than a metaphor. She felt the spiritual bruises from constantly running up against it. Mulder's paranoid searching into the unexplainable would only further kill an already crippled career. "Besides I hear you've already gotten a new partner."  
  
"Yeah, Dana Scully."  
  
"Scully? I've heard of her. She's good, very by the books."  
  
"Too much by the books for my tastes. I don't exactly trust her yet. I've got the feeling she's been sent down from high to discredit the X-Files."  
  
"Doesn't sound like a difficult job to me," she said dryly.  
  
"C'mon Starling. I need your help on something."  
  
"What?" she asked, eyes narrowed in suspicion.  
  
"Something right up your alley. A flesh eater." The smile on his face could be described in some circles as shit eating.  
  
"This is a joke right?" He only shook his head. "Christ!" She sat forward, hands out. "Do you really think it's Lecter?"  
  
Mulder hunched a shoulder. "Not really. But it could be. Think about what a boost it would be to your career to bring him in."  
  
"You've finally gone soft in the head, Mulder."  
  
"I need your help, Starling. Please?" he nudged her foot with his own.  
  
"You'd owe me big time, like a lobster dinner."  
  
"Just like old times right?" he asked with a loopy grin.  
  
"Mulder you were the most fucked-up relationship I've ever had, and I am including Dr. Lecter. Does Scully know about your red-head fetish?" He shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other. "Maybe she and I should have a little chat."  
  
"I don't think that'll be necessary. Scully's not going to last long."  
  
"Not a lot of faith in your new partner," she observed.  
  
"I just think she's so busy trying to explain away everything that she's missing the big picture." He leaned in close, placing a hand on her chair back. "So you'll help me?"  
  
With an over-exaggerated sigh she gestured to the computer. "This is wrapping up. I'll check with Pearsall to make sure there's nothing new in the works. If not, I'll be down to your little freak show day after tomorrow."  
  
"Great. I'll make the reservations."  
  
"Reservations? Where?"  
  
"Montana." Before she could say anything else, he gave a wave and walked off.  
  
Under her breath she said, "I hate to see you leave, but I love to watch you go," as she eyeballed the way he moved in his suit, with an arched brow.  
  
In the months that followed the Jame Gumb case and her graduation, Clarice Starling had been passed from department to department like an orphaned child. She tried not to take it personally. On one of the few occasions she had had business down in Behavioral Science, she'd run into Fox Mulder, literally.  
  
Both were rounding a corner with arm-fulls of papers and heads full of distracting thoughts. The ensuing crash had sent them sprawling in a tangle of arms, legs, and papers. As they collected their respective debris, Clarice had involuntarily said out loud, "Why don't you watch where you're goin'?"  
  
"That'd be about as helpful as trying to watch out for a tornado." She'd looked up into the most incredibly intense eyes she'd seen since, well since the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, although these eyes were a deep hazel, not maroon. The smile, however. That smile could induce a nun to think of committing the most carnal of sins.  
  
Clarice had had to mentally remind herself that she was concentrating on her career. She hadn't seen anyone socially since Noble Pilcher. She just didn't have the time for that sort of nonsense.  
  
Blinking against the onslaught of feelings that smile instilled in her, she'd said, "Yeah, well I guess that makes two of us."  
  
"Fox Mulder," he of the intense eyes and wicked smile said as he stuck out the hand that wasn't holding the disheveled files against his chest.  
  
Swallowing against her will, she took the hand. "Clarice Starling."  
  
"Right, I thought I recognized you. You're Jack's protégé," he replied giving her hand a squeeze before letting it go.  
  
"I wouldn't go that far," she said with what some would take as humility, but what was more correctly described as a combination of disgust and sour grapes.  
  
"You got Buffalo Bill. That's pretty impressive."  
  
"It wasn't meant to be impressive. I was just trying to save Catherine Martin."  
  
He nodded, "I understand. Look, I've got to be somewhere," he glanced at his watch, "About five minutes ago. I'd really like to speak with you some more. Could we maybe have dinner tonight?"  
  
The wheels of her head spun out of control. Was he asking her on a date or just an informal gathering of colleagues? She could hear the voice of her roommate, Ardelia, in her head, "Girl, two does not make an informal gathering of colleagues."  
  
"I'm not so sure that's a good idea."  
  
"Please?" Oh God, could anyone look so intense and sincere at the same time? It was a look she'd fall prey to many more times.  
  
"Ok. I'll meet you at that bar on Kramer Street, you know the one? 7:30. And don't be late," she admonished over her shoulder as she walked past him.  
  
That evening would turn into eight of the most exhilarating and frustrating months of Clarice's life.  
  
She'd learned all about him, including the shocking disappearance of his sister Samantha, and although she knew precisely where her father was, that sense of loss at such a young age gave them a solid basis of commonality. While she was skeptical of his belief that extraterrestrials had somehow absconded with the young girl, she could see how such a small glimmer of hope could keep him going. He had his own lambs and took what measures he could to silence them.  
  
Clarice never deluded herself with the idea she was in love with Fox Mulder (for one thing his insistence that she use only his surname ruined any chance of true intimacy), but she hadn't felt this level of connection with a member of the opposite sex in a long, long time, if ever.  
  
Sometimes she would reflect back to the way Dr. Lecter had forced her to bare her soul and wondered if this affected her relationships. Mulder of course knew of her meetings with the doctor and questioned her at length about it. She found in him a true confidante, who took in her descriptions of their talks without judgment or commentary. He told her time and again how brave he thought she was, and Mulder was not one for effusive compliments.  
  
She even shared with him her concerns that the FBI in general, and Jack Crawford in particular, wanted to sweep her under the rug, that her involvement with Lecter had tainted her in their eyes. And in the dark of the night he had whispered his reply. "Clarice, it's tainted your soul. What you put out to the rest of the world is a sense that you are above them, that your universe does not rotate around the same purpose as theirs. You've separated yourself from the pack. They're only responding to that."  
  
She'd taken his words as truth and saw herself in the mirror of his eyes. Yes, she was separate now, or had she always been? She couldn't play the political games, nor could she hold her tongue when the truth needed to be said.  
  
And of course that would prove to be the downfall of the relationship. Mulder had set out to re-open the long buried X-Files division, and she could not stand by and watch him throw away a promising career in profiling on what she saw as ridiculous and paranoid.  
  
"The truth is out there, Clarice. I know I can make a difference."  
  
"You're a fool, Mulder. You know what they're saying about you and maybe they're right, maybe you are crazy."  
  
"Any crazier than your last boyfriend?" In the heat of the argument, Clarice had allowed herself to loose control for one brief moment and let her hand fly. The crack was deafening in Mulder's small apartment, and the two of them looked across the space that grew wider by the minute.  
  
"Goodbye, Mulder," she had said quietly, leaving behind another casualty of her life in the dust.  
  
The sound of her phone pulled her out of her reverie. She snatched it up. "Starling."  
  
"Where's my report?"  
  
"I'll have it on your desk in 15 minutes, Sir."  
  
"Make it 10."  
  
"Yes, Sir."  
  
"And Starling?"  
  
"Sir?"  
  
"I've just received a call from AD Skinner. You've been requested to help Fox Mulder, downstairs. I want you on it."  
  
"Thank you Sir." 


End file.
